


Among Us

by TheTartWitch



Series: Charles, you're an alien [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Aliens!X-Men, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Crashlandings, Gen, M/M, Needs A Beta, POV Charles, POV Phil, Where is the crew?, Young Charles and Erik, could be platonic but i really doubt it, suggested Charles/Erik
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 11:54:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6517642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTartWitch/pseuds/TheTartWitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles Xavier is an alien assigned to the Earth satellite team. On his crew is Erik Lehnsherr, Raven Darkholme, Hank 'Beast' McCoy, and others. The satellite is attacked while they're orbiting and Charles barely remembers the escape he made. Upon waking on Earth, he is picked up by the Avengers and taken to SHIELD, where he finds Erik again...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Among Us

Charles is trapped in his own mind. He’s fashioned it into a room of sorts, but it’s nothing like going outside, where he’s lying on some sort of counseling table waiting for his guard to return. There are no telepathy suppressants on this planet and unfortunately they decided drugging him with something else, something foreign to his system, was the best replacement.

He crash-landed on this planet some time ago, but the drugs and the imprisonment make it difficult to tell exact time, much less the number of days, if this planet’s rotations even worked that way. They should.

He wonders what they’ve told Erik, and Raven, and Hank, and the whole team, and sometimes he imagines he can hear their thoughts, their desperation to find him, but that wouldn’t make any sense; he can barely feel the minds of the humans surrounding his body!

He hopes his satellite’s replacement crew will come soon and find them missing. Find him alive.

It had all started with Erik. There had been something wrong with the engine, something small but definitely worth notice. He’d gone down to fix it and everything had been well, but then his thoughts had spiked, reaching out in a panic of _CharlesCharlesCharlessomething’swrongplease_ , and Charles had paled visibly and turned but the _force_ of it, the _focus_ of something other than Erik pressing into his mind at that moment, had overwhelmed him. He’d passed out on the floor of the satellite’s bridge, with the wide window showing a view of their charge behind him, the best view of Earth in the entire galaxy.

He wakes in a crater, the wreckage of an escape pod he doesn’t remember boarding lying shattered around him, and he’s so confused at the reverse view of the wide blue sky above him that for a moment he doesn’t move. His sluggish brain tries to think, to push the molasses of his thoughts faster, but eventually all he can come up with is that it looks a lot like the distress signals he used to receive from Earth immediately after the Great Battle so many years ago, but that can’t be right, because. Well. Where is everyone else? Surely if the pod crashed they wouldn’t have left him here; not Raven, his sister, or Erik, someone’s he’s not so sure what to call. Acquaintance? Friend? Chess opponent?

He pushes the thoughts away. Someone’s coming closer, their mind feeling spiked and frightened, and Charles reaches out automatically to soothe their worries. They scream, exacerbating the ringing in his ears, and turn to run. Their mind flicks through several random strings of numbers before settling on one in particular: _911_. It’s peculiar, but if thinking of numbers helps to calm them, Charles isn’t going to complain. He pulls out of their consciousness, for the first time noticing his rather worrying countenance.

His clothes are intact, probably because they hadn’t had time to tear or burn through Earth’s atmosphere, but his hands are cut from the raw materials taking up the ground around him. He supposes he is extremely lucky that when the structure cracked, it didn’t take him with it.

He stands and stumbles a bit, trying to get used to Earth’s level of gravity. It’s not too difficult; the satellite had had almost the same levels, but he’s weak anyway and disoriented, so it’s natural to take a moment to get used to the feeling of dragging his feet against grass, a sensation he hasn’t felt in almost a century of Earth’s time. He was stationed groundside back home before that.

He stays in that clearing for a while, knowing if he leaves he could miss Erik or Raven when they sweep for the pod and come to get him. Even shattered, the pieces of the pod send out a retrieval signal for almost 48 Earth hours, and after that only Erik would be able to trace the unique feeling of the metal parts.

He’s slipped into a meditative position, his mind clearing, when he feels several humans moving closer. Their minds are guarded but not sharp; he slides in smoothly. They move with purpose, and he does nothing to halt or deter that movement; in a way, it reminds him of Erik when he gets focused on an enemy, and that stays his mental hands for a few more moments. He can feel that they don’t mean him harm so he leans back and watches from their eyes for a while.

One of them is a woman with cropped red hair and she reminds him of Raven so acutely he decides he’d like to speak to her just once, for that feeling of home until the real Raven arrives. He comes back to himself and opens his eyes, smiling.

“Hello,” he says, gesturing to the dirt in front of him. “Please, sit. I know it’s not much, but I’d really like to speak to you.” He wishes, at that moment, that he’d studied human languages and not just their differentiating numerical systems; it would’ve come in so handy.

The woman frowns at him, her eyes flicking between him and the spot he’d pointed at. She doesn’t move yet, instead saying something to the man at point in their 3-point triangle formation. He’s stationed to the back, obviously their definition of a non-combative, and the two humans in front of him give off the strongest feeling of protective instinct he’s ever felt from anyone but Erik.

The man wears a suit and carries something like a clipboard. Charles realizes the woman is waiting for something from the man, probably permission or reassurance of some sort, so he stands and stretches lithely. He notices the two in front stiffening and then forcibly relaxing, and he chuckles. “I’m not going to _attack_ him! I took a course in Human Cultural Customs and Body Language, so I’m going to go out on a limb here and say you know what a ‘ _handshake_ ’ is?” He says the word in the language his instructor had used and watches them perk up. He extends his hand away from his body, wishing for once he had Erik’s gift. Feeling how many weapons these people could potentially injure him with would be very useful right about now.

The man shakes, his eyes narrowing a little when Charles, fascinated by the structural similarities of their bones and phalanges, lifts his hand and begins to examine it. He can feel the man’s faint amusement and the other two’s wary discomfort, and it makes him laugh even more as he tries to explain what he’s looking at, comparing their hands and arms and his veins are _gold_ now, utterly fascinating… could be the oxygen content of the air or the level of hydration he’s inhaling, but he’d have to find out. That’s not exactly his area of study, but it’s close enough that he catches himself planning experiments and trials in his head.

He almost doesn’t notice they’re slowly moving farther from the crash site.

He pauses in his explanation, raising his eyes to the man’s, and narrows them suspiciously. _That was very clever, my friend, but it will not work_. He steps away from them, rolling up his smart professional sleeves, and walks quickly back to the wreckage. He can hear them jabbering between themselves where he left them, but besides keeping a mental finger in each of their minds he pays them no mind, choosing instead to bend down for a shard of the pod’s hull. It is, unfortunately, quite sharp, so he keeps his grip loose and careful. In the back of his skull, he feels the woman’s malevolent and protective feelings skyrocket and it makes him pause with a curious noise. Was there danger?

A low buzz begins to filter through his link to the second man’s mind, low and annoying but as a whole harmless. He tilts his head and turns back towards them, his eyes curious. “What is that noise?” He asks sharply, wary, but before he can step closer his eyes roll back and he collapses to his knees and then to all the way on the ground. The shard of metal in his hand is forgotten.

Phil knows this isn’t the way to go the moment he steps into the field where the child reported something ‘in her head’ and the appearance of an alien. Seeing as that child’s a SHIELD agent’s daughter and they’d had interesting experiences with aliens recently, Fury had taken the girl’s claims seriously. The scene before him wiped away any doubts Phil may have had.

It’s like a minefield of wrecked metal, something glimmering and silvery but completely destroyed. It must have been something important, because the man wandering through it has taken to touching every piece he passes with a stray finger or palm.

The man is surprisingly humanoid, with the exception of his bright gold eyes and veins that shimmer when he turns to face them. He smiles kindly and says something before plopping down in the dirt and pointing in front of him.

The language he’s speaking isn’t Earthly, Phil can already tell. It sounds like what angels would speak if they existed, low and musical and brilliant. Natasha stiffens.

“He’s in our heads,” she reports. “I’m not detecting any changes happening, but he’s definitely there.” Loki sighs in Phil’s ear.

“I’m afraid we don’t have cameras trained on where you are at the moment, but Fury assures you he is working on it. Meanwhile, keep him occupied. _Peacefully._ ” Phil chuckles as Clint gives a short grunt. Nat doesn’t make a sound; she’s busy cataloguing every move the man makes as he stands and makes his way towards them, hand outstretched. In the midst of the man’s babble, the word ‘handshake’ slips through.

Phil thinks the man’s fascination with his hand in adorable. Judging from the way he compares the colors of their veins and gestures from his body to Phil’s, he was talking about the differences between their bodies.

“Phil, try to move back a bit so he’ll be in view of the cameras and we’ll see what we’re dealing with.” Fury ordered, and Phil tapped his earpiece twice with his free hand to signify his understanding. He slowly began to ease them backwards, motioning Nat and Clint along so they could distract the man if need be. “Loki and Thor are going to see if they can recognize him from Asgard.”

He’d almost managed it, given the cameras a glimpse of the man’s exuberant face, when the man stiffened and pulled back, pouting at Phil. He sounded upset when he spoke again, and he stepped away to return to the field of space car bits.

“We have visual,” Loki mumbled, sounding awed and amazed, like someone who’d just met a celebrity out on the street, which surprised Phil because no matter what happened Loki always remained bored, at least on the outside. If he was showing enthusiasm, something big was going on. “That man… I’m going to capture him.” Phil jumped, his attention shifting back to the man, who was holding a jagged shard of space ship and staring at them, looking confused and upset and worried all at once. He mumbled something before flopping down on his front in the dirt, luckily not hitting any of the bulky masses littering the earth.

Charles woke slowly, his head pounding. His hands attempted to rise to smooth his forehead but they stopped about two inches up, locked in handcuffs to a bed. “What-?” He gurgled, staring at the room around him in confusion.

It almost looked like the med bay back at the satellite, but that couldn’t be right; Erik would be here beside him if it was. And besides, it had obvious evidence of being inside a human building: IVs, a heart monitor, other equipment he hadn’t bothered memorizing because they never had any use for it on the satellite where there were better things to use, and a television in the corner, with a weather channel droning on in the background.

He shifted, trying to sit up, and grouched when he couldn’t get enough leverage to rise above a foot off the bed. He sent his mind out to latch onto someone nearby who could help him; he could feel the low thrum of people thinking close by, so there wasn’t any danger in being alone or stranded. Unless the humans had captured him for malevolent means he was safe, and even then he could probably save himself using telepathy.

The door opened slowly, creaking just the tiniest bit, and Charles noticed shrewdly that the television had been placed on one side and a stack of boxes on the other, so no one could hide from the person coming into the room.

It was the man whose hand he’d examined.

“Hello,” said the man, smiling just a little. Charles peered up at him and frowned. Something was _wrong_ with his mind. Charles reached in a little deeper, worried, looking but not touching, and finally located the source of the _wrong_ : a little blue knot, pulsing gently in the back of the man’s mind. It was sending messages somewhere else, somewhere potentially dangerous, so he grabbed it mentally and disconnected it in a quick jerk. The man gasped, still staring into his eyes, and Charles smiled up at him, patting his arm. “There you go, it’s okay,” he said quietly, not wanting to spook the man. He didn’t know if it had any side effects and he didn’t want to trigger a violent one if it did. He’d seen mind implants like that, during the Great War, and the things they’d done to people after they’d been removed… it was horrible.

The man stepped back away from the bed shakily. Charles, not wanting to frighten him, projected a sense of safety and peace out towards the man’s mind, calming him while leaving him in full control of his capacities.

The door blasted open behind the man and Charles, startled, peeked around the arm of the man’s suit at the group of people glaring at him. One of them, dressed all in green, strode forward roughly and snatched the man’s face in his hand, examining his eyes critically. “It’s okay,” Charles reassured, “I got it out, so he’s alright now.”

The one in green turned to glare down at him, snapping something acerbic and pulling the man behind him. Charles’ friendly smile faltered, his hands lowering slowly to the cot beneath him. _If only Erik were here_ , he thought sadly, _he studied their languages. They probably think I’ve poisoned the poor man now._

Erik.

The ship; he’d gotten a shard but then he’d gone down thanks to that awful sound -. Where was the shard?

He jolted out of bed, almost slipping on the floor before sliding into the man’s head. **_Where is the shard?_** The man cried out, clutching his head, and at any other time Charles would have felt guilty but this man was standing between him and Erik and that would never do.

The woman and second man from the field leapt at him, shouting something, but with a thought he froze them mid-leap and leaned closer to the man. **_Where is the shard?! That is my way home, to Raven, to the satellite, to… Erik._**

**_Who is Erik? What is the shard?_** The man panted as he tried to ask questions. Charles became impatient; what if Erik came for him but couldn’t find him?

“I must go back! I must be able to go back!” Charles shouted, his voice tinged more with desperation than anger now, his hold on the man’s mind slipping off in his guilt. **_I apologize, my friend, but this so much more important than anything else to me._**

“Go back to where?” The one in green said suddenly, throwing an arm around the man’s shoulders and helping him to his feet. “Why did you cut off our communication? What were you doing just now to the son of Coul?”

Charles cannot move.

“You speak Cerellian…” He gasps, his mind instantly sending a tendril to the other’s, but it recoils before it can actually touch anything. He’s aware of it on a basic level, but it is at that moment he realizes the green one’s mind feels fundamentally different from anyone else’s. He’s never met a mind like this one, and it makes him feverish, because while all minds are different, this one feels like something entirely new. “Who are you? You feel strange.”

The green one frowns. “I am Loki, Prince of Asgard, and I learned all languages of your kind when I tried to conquer you. Tell me the answers I seek.” In his shock, Charles releases the two he’d frozen and stumbles back to the bed. He tries to remember what questions he’s supposed to be answering.

“The satellite, I must return to the satellite. Erik… Erik is on the satellite.” Loki relays this to the woman, who nods and taps her ear twice. She begins to speak in low tones, mentioning Erik’s name numerous times throughout the conversation, before going stiff. She walks over to him and kneels in front of him.

“Erik Lehnsherr?” She asks, struggling with the accent, and Charles stares down at her. She repeats his name, and he nods quickly.

“What is your name?” Loki demands, still supporting the son of Coul, who he gruffly foists off on a man with a star shield. Charles murmurs his own name quietly, focusing on the way the metal of his bedframe has begun to warp beneath him. The metal IV stands shudder and Charles laughs, sending his mind out to seek Erik, who he finds standing in a large room with another mind, his own furious and cold. When Charles touches it he can feel Erik sag with relief and laugh as well.

“Charles,” Loki says, impatiently, as though he has been doing it for some time, and Charles presses a quick mental kiss to the corner of Erik’s mouth before telling him the directions to get to Charles’ room and returns to the room full of people. “Where did you go, Charles?”

Charles stands and stretches. “Erik is here, looking for me, and in a moment he will be in this room, and then we will leave here and go home.” He tries to contain his excitement, his joy, but he is afraid he is projecting it from the way the woman growls low but relaxes and stills. The others show similar signs of quiet, lovely contemplation.

A moment later, the door bursts open yet again, this time admitting a much more welcome face.

Even watching from the outside, Phil has to admit it’s a very tearful reunion. The two men leap into each other’s arms before blushing and smiling bashfully at each other. Or rather, Charles does all that and Erik gives the impression of murderous intention to all but Charles. Phil had felt the brush of Charles’ mind transmitting his happiness and excitement, but what had surprised him more was the way the metal equipment restraining Charles’ hand to the bedframe had snapped violently in half the moment Erik entered the room.

They were speaking the angel language that no one but apparently Loki understood; Charles’ face went from excited to disbelieving to worried in a moment and he began to repeat the same words over and over, grabbing at Erik’s shoulders with wide eyes.

“He’s asking after someone,” Loki said, eyes never leaving Charles and Erik, “someone named Raven, apparently. Something happened to their ship and they’re not sure anyone else escaped to Earth.”

Thor frowned. “So they are stuck here, on this planet?” The hammer in his fist vibrated with stress, but the way he stared down at it suggested that perhaps it wasn’t strictly _his_ stress. “That is… unfortunate,” he mumbled distractedly.

Erik turned to glance at them then, his eyes shrewd and suspicious. Phil smiled weakly, not wanting to antagonize the super-powered alien any further, but Erik barely spared him a glance. He only had words for Loki, quick and short but biting in tone. Charles said something pleadingly and Erik stared at him for a moment before sighing and admitting something. Loki grinned.

“They have decided they need SHIELD’s assistance finding the rest of their crewmates. They cede to SHIELD’s authority for the moment.” He crowed, a smirk slashing across his face like something dangerous. Phil wondered what he’d had to say to make them agree to that, but then felt sick.

**_More aliens_** , he thought with disbelief, and in his head he felt Charles root around before replying **_unfortunately so, my friend_**.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty sure this came from the fic by ikeracity and Pangea about the X-Men as space aliens, so go check that out. Probably add to this as the feeling strikes, but definitely plans for this. ;)


End file.
